DAYTON, N.J. — Simon Kaplan, 97, who founded Top 100 retailer Crest Furniture in 1970, died on Jan. 12.
Kaplan, a World War II veteran and Purple Heart recipient, founded the New Jersey-based furniture group with a single store in the early 1970s. As of 2021, it had grown to 20 stores, including Value City Furniture and Ashley HomeStores in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
Kaplan was preceded in death by his wife, Annett, a longtime associate at Crest Furniture. The Kaplans met in 1951 as guests at a dude ranch in Milford, Pa., and married a year later. After raising their children, Annett Kaplan joined her husband as a bookkeeper for Crest several years after he had formed the retail furniture business. Later, she took on a broad range of other duties, working up until health issues got in the way. She died in May 2018.
Details on arrangements will come later.
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